


this you won't forget (i was the one who came running back again)

by whyyesitscar



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29182998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whyyesitscar/pseuds/whyyesitscar
Summary: this is how the world works: everyone has a ticking-clock tattoo that tells you what time it is wherever your soulmate is. at night, your dreams show you how your soulmate is experiencing the world.clarke's soul-clock is only an hour away from where she lives, and she dreams of nothing, and that's just what she's used to—until, of course, it changes.
Relationships: Anya & Lexa (The 100), Clarke Griffin & Raven Reyes, Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 26
Kudos: 222





	this you won't forget (i was the one who came running back again)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm trying to make 2021 the year where i either finish some published fics that i haven't touched in years, or clear my conscience of all the half-formed ideas sitting in google docs that, unsurprisingly, have also been abandoned for years. this one belongs to the second category, and will remain a oneshot, lest i get sucked into repeating the pattern of desertion.
> 
> title + lyrics from "i'm gonna wait" by the temper trap. please enjoy!

_and although it lingers in my sleep,_   
_may you return to me—not to possess but  
to hold you in my dreams._

/

Mostly you thought your clock was broken.

It was so much more boring than everyone else’s, every time you caught a glimpse of it on your wrist. All of your friends growing up used to watch theirs as a past-time, huddled around each other with their arms extended. They had a whole chart of whose clock was in which time zone, and which countries they might correspond to. When you were little, your parents just told you that the time on your clock represented a time in the world, and that one day you’d find something important wherever that time existed. But the truth spilled out in middle school, because teachers and movies and books couldn’t resist trying to enchant girls with stories of destiny and love.

You’d asked your parents about it once, because you didn’t really believe that everyone ended up with or even found their soulmate. But they blushed and your mom stammered her way through the story of how they met before your dad took over and exaggerated everything, so you figured it was real and inevitable.

You just wish your soulmate could live somewhere cooler than a few states over.

You know they must be close because the time on your wrist is only an hour off your real time.

Wells’s soulmate is almost certainly in Australia, and Octavia’s is somewhere in England, and your soulmate is probably living an equally boring life in, like, Montana and you’ll probably never meet because who wants to go to Montana.

Honestly.

/

You feel robbed of the dreams, more than anything.

Every Friday, Raven takes naps between classes on the quad because her soulmate starts the weekend doing some crazy rock climbing and Raven’s always been an adrenaline junkie. Octavia watches soccer matches so much that she’s got a near encyclopedic knowledge of English football teams. It’s always been the best part of the whole soulmate thing, the idea that you get to watch the world through their eyes when you sleep. You so badly wanted a soulmate you could get to know slowly, someone you could watch grow up at the same time as you, whose habits you could observe until nothing was unexpected when you finally met. You feel like you’re missing out on what it means to know someone, and it’s just not fair.

You and your soulmate sleep at the same time, so the one bit of consolation you’re taking from this is that their dreams kind of suck, too.

You kind of hope it bothers them just as much.

/

Now and again you’ll get glimpses, when they go on vacation with people you can only presume are their family members. Still, you don’t think they’ve ever really traveled too far from home because you’ve never gotten a full day in a dream. Just wisps of the last few hours of a car ride, or finally flopping down into a hotel bed after a long day of travel. Sometimes, you dream of studying and you figure they must be cramming for a test. If nothing else, you’ve developed a pretty deep knowledge of plants over the years. You can recognize most trees on sight, which Raven and Octavia continually give you shit for.

It starts to change on a Tuesday, near the beginning of your senior year of college. You almost miss an exam in your morning class because you were so absorbed in dreaming, in finally having something to dream about. You only end up five minutes late, and you rush through the test so you can gush about everything to Raven as soon as you’re done.

“There’s no way you passed that test, Clarke.”

“Raven.”

“I mean, pass or fail however you want, I’m just saying you definitely didn’t pass it.”

“I know.”

“And you don’t care because…?”

“I finally had an actual dream last night, like a legit soulmate dream, and now my life is over forever.”

“Okay, you’re gonna have to back that up for me, Clarke.”

“She _works out_ , Raven. If we ever meet, she’s gonna make _me_ work out, and you know I don’t do that.”

“Or you could just watch her at the gym and lust after your probably-very-hot soulmate.” Raven drops her bag onto the grass, positioning it like a pillow against her usual tree. “How do you know she’s a she anyway?”

“Oh, true; I guess I did just make some assumptions from what I could see—”

“You saw her?”

“Well, sure,” you frown, “how else would I know? How else did you figure out your soulmate was a girl?”

“I’ve done a lot of guessing based on hand-washing and the few times I’ve seen a shadow. But every time she looks in a mirror, my dreams get fuzzy.”

“Oh.” Raven looks at you for a moment longer before checking her clock and closing her eyes. “How long is your nap again?”

“Fifty one minutes,” she says, her voice halfway to sleepy already, “and you’re cutting into it.”

“Okay, have fun.”

You scooch back until you’re sitting against the tree too, and you pull out your sketchbook and draw while you wait. You draw until you can hear Raven stirring again, and then you quietly put everything back in your bag and pretend to look at your phone.

Raven wakes up surly because her soulmate didn’t work out today, grumbling about everything she missed until you remind her that at least she got a nap out of it. You won’t tell her about your drawing, not yet.

You finally have something you can hold onto. It should stay just yours for a while longer.

/

You get glimpses almost regularly now. They never feel long for dreams, even though you know dreams probably aren’t long anyway. You start sleeping with a notebook next to your bed—at first to write down your dreams and note the difference between your time and the clock on your wrist, but soon words stop being enough. You wake up to late-night sketches you don’t remember drawing; the lines are heavy and jagged, taking turns at places they shouldn’t. You bring at least one with you wherever you go, trying to piece together any narrative you can about her life.

She has brown hair and wears a beat-up ring on her right index finger. She loves plants and trees but you never catch her reading about them. She bikes a lot, which you think is weird because it’s starting to get cold and also who bikes anymore. It isn’t until you watch her walk on a beach—never once picking up a pretty rock or shell, which enormously offends you—that you consider she might actually be on vacation.

“I think my soulmate’s on vacation,” is what you tell Raven a week later.

“In October?” she scoffs. “No fair.”

“Well, she’s definitely somewhere sunny and warm.”

“In—”

“ _Yes_ , in October.”

“What a slacker; doesn’t she have a job or go to school or anything?” Raven’s eyes get comically wide and your stomach falls; this look never means anything good. “Dude, what if your soulmate’s, like, sixty years old? And retired, and all she does is garden and visit farmer’s markets and stare wistfully at the ocean.”

“She’s not sixty, Raven. I’ve seen her hands.” Raven growls playfully. “Gross. I’m just saying they’re definitely not a sixty-year-old’s hands.”

“You never know, Clarke; your mom—”

“Please don’t.”

“—looks a good fifteen years younger than she actually is; that’s all I was gonna say.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What, you don’t think I can give your mom a sincere compliment?”

“Not without making it weird.”

“Listen, you just can’t judge someone on age because some people age ridiculously well. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Okay.”

“And also, if I didn’t already have a soulmate who is statistically likely to be hot, I’d have married your mom three years ago; Abby is _smokin’_.”

You drop your head in your hands. “Raven, you made it weird.”

“Whatever, I’m just saying true stuff.”

“Is there a reason you’re more ornery than usual?”

Raven slumps into the ratty loveseat you stole from your parents when you moved to college. “My soulmate hasn’t been rock climbing in weeks; all she does now is go to boring meetings and sign papers.”

“Ooh, have you been able to make out a signature? Maybe we can find out who she is.”

“No way, you don’t need to go all Sher-Clarke Holmes on this.”

“Too late,” you trill as you pull out your notebook and flip to an empty page.

Raven snatches it immediately, scanning through your plethora of drawings. “Holy shit, Griffin; you’ve been holding out on me.”

“Raven…”

“These are intense! Do you do one every night?”

“Well—”

“Have you ever seen her face? Is she really hot? You have to tell me if she’s really hot, Clarke.”

“Why?” Raven pauses to think and you take the opportunity to grab your notebook back. “You already have a probably-hot soulmate.”

“Yeah but having concrete evidence is so much more fun.”

“Well, I haven’t ever seen her face.”

“Sucks.”

The truth is, even though you don’t know what your soulmate looks like, you’ve spent a fair amount of time looking at her. At first you felt more than a little jealousy—who looks at someone that much if they don’t have a crush on them? But it kept going and it felt different each time. You never saw her face; it was always the back of her head, or her silhouette from a distance. You were watching her protectively, the way someone would if they were worried about a friend or sibling. Sometimes your dreams are nothing but watching and you wake up lonely.

Once, you wake up convinced it’s the middle of the night. Your room is dark and quiet, you’re groggy, and your mouth feels like someone left an old t-shirt in it for a few hours. It isn’t until you look at the clock that you realize it’s almost seven, and you took an accidental nap after your last class. You make your way to the kitchen, sighing and rubbing at your eyes. You feel heavy and forgotten.

You pour yourself a glass of chocolate milk and grab a package of double chocolate cookies. For a second, you’re surprised to see your bed when you walk back into your room—there are no soft midnight breezes or curtains for them to billow; the sky outside your window still has hints of pink instead of a multitude of stars. It’s early morning, wherever your soulmate is, and she’s definitely not asleep.

There’s a little window seat in the corner of your room; you don’t often sit on it because you still haven’t really learned how to sit still for any prolonged period of time. But it looks inviting now, so you curl up, closing your eyes and wrapping your arms around your knees as you chew too much cookie.

_You inhale sharply as the wind picks up and you smell the sand and salt of the ocean. The sun is coming up but you wish it wouldn’t; you don’t want the day to start. She looks lonely as you walk closer to her, her ponytail lifting erratically with the wind. She doesn’t move as you approach, as you get close enough to see the faint scar underneath her hairline, bright against her tanned skin._

_“I miss him,” she says as you sit down, and this is what she sounds like. Cautious, quiet, deep._

_“I know.”_

_You ache but you don’t know why._

You open your eyes and watch _Planet Earth_ for a few hours, just in case she finds it comforting.

/

Thanksgiving ushers in a restlessness so strong you almost consider actually exercising just to have something to do. You wish your arms could move as fast as you want to paint because you don’t know how else to express your feelings. You pay more attention than ever to the clock on your wrist, spending hours after classes researching which parts of the world exist in that time, narrowing your choices to try and deduce where someone would want to spend a really long vacation in the fall.

You start working on a plan to take a trip for Christmas.

/

“South Africa is a big country, Clarke.”

“I know.”

“She could not be there.”

“I know.”

“She could be there and we could still never find her.”

“I know.”

“Okay, well. As long as you know.”

Raven hefts her bag on her shoulder—you’ve offered (and been denied) at least five times to switch and let her roll your suitcase. The line to check bags is long and you’re tired of waiting. You absently scan the screen listing all of the departures as you tune out Raven’s long list of why this trip is a terrible idea.

There are more flights leaving at six in the morning than you’d have thought, going to every corner of the world. You crane your head to keep reading the list as the line inches slowly forward.

“—and what are you gonna do if we somehow miraculously manage to find her, do I have to go back home or just fuck around for two weeks while you guys make googly-eyes at each other; how long are you gonna spend looking for her if we _don’t_ find her right away, which we definitely won’t; and you probably haven’t even come up with a plan to look for her because this is a really stupid plan to start with, I’m not even apologizing for saying that—”

Your eyes skim over domestic and international cities. You take a moment to think about how sometimes you can’t tell which is which because so many American cities are named after foreign ones, when suddenly the screen refreshes and your heart skips a beat. “Raven.”

“What?”

“We’re not going to South Africa.”

“Thank _fuck_ ,” she heaves.

“We’re going to Greece.”

“Nooooo…”

“It’s a soulmate thing; please don’t make me have to bribe you with anything else.”

“You’re not gonna follow through on those bribes anyway.”

“Probably not.”

“I could just go home now.”

“You could.”

“You better find us a goddamn great beach house, Clarke.”

“Right on the sand.”

“Nuh uh, you owe me the middle of the fucking ocean.”

“Okay.”

/

_She fades in slowly, with the ghost of her name still on your lips. You watch as she stands a few yards in front of you, hastily placing her hands on her hips in an effort to mask what she was doing._

_“Stop eating the crops!” you yell._

_“I’m not!” she yells back around a mouthful of food._

_“I’m gonna start charging you.”_

_“A delicious and worthwhile fee.”_

_“Stop eating them.”_

_She barely moves but you can feel her reach out to eat more._

_You want to smile just as much as you roll your eyes._

/

The flight to Greece allows for some excellent dreams, for both you and Raven. You wish you had something entertaining to offer back, but you’re too busy relishing the dreams you’re finally getting to actually care that much. Raven laughs at least four times in her sleep, which makes you think that her soulmate must be pretty feisty.

Raven is guaranteed to laugh at two things: compilations of sports injuries and sarcasm.

You’d put money on the latter.

/

“Do you want to see the Parthenon?”

“Pass.”

“The Acropolis?”

“No.”

“Pompeii?”

“Boooooo.”

You roll your eyes and cross out another tourist attraction on your list. “You don’t want to see one of the deadliest volcanoes ever?”

“Is it being deadly right now?” Raven rolls her eyes right back. “Wait, hold on. That’s not even _in_ Greece.”

“Just checking,” you grin.

Raven dips three fingers in her glass of water and flicks them into your eyes. “You promised me beaches and sand.”

“Fine,” you sigh. You flip to a page in your guide book about the Greek islands. “What about Lesbos?”

Raven stops just short of throwing the whole glass in your face.

/

You end up loosely— _very_ loosely—mapping out a tour of a few islands. You never really let Raven get settled on any of them, which you know is riling her up more than anything else on this trip. But it’s the off-season anyway and none of them even really feel _right_ to you, once you start walking around.

It’s a foolish way to behave. You know that because Raven won’t stop telling you that it is; won’t stop asking how you can possibly have an intuition for this stuff when for so long, you didn’t even think you had a soulmate.

It brings up an interesting point one night, when you’re eating dinner and Raven is quiet only because her mouth is full of food.

“Hey,” you mumble. Your mouth is only slightly less full. “Did anyone tell you what’s supposed to happen when you _find_ your soulmate?”

“If you don’t know what to do when you find your soulmate, I don’t know if I can help you.”

“No, I mean—” You chuckle at the way she leans to dodge the bits of feta that spray out of your mouth when you speak. “I know what to _do_ , obviously. But, like, how are you supposed to know? That it’s them.”

“Oh.” Raven furrows her brow and you smirk, triumphant. “That I...don’t actually know.”

“No one ever told you?”

“No one ever told _you_?” Raven retorts.

You sit back and chew quietly, thinking. If you had a time machine, you’d certainly use it at least once to go back and find your parents in the early days of their relationship, when they were young and fearless and in love and no one was sick. Your dad used to love to tell the story of how they met but you remember it through a six, seven, eight-year-old’s mind—watered down and sanitized, a fairy tale more than a set of instructions.

“Guess not,” you grumble.

Raven gives you a sad smile, kicks your foot in a friendly way that you know means _I’d hug you but I don’t want to get up right now_.

“We’ll figure it out,” she promises. “Improvise.”

“Oh my god.”

“Adapt.”

“No.”

“Overcome.”

You kick her right back, definitely more forcefully. “I swear, if you don’t shut up—”

“You have peaceful nature docs and I have bitchin’ survival skills. Don’t knock it when we get stranded here and you _don’t_ find your soulmate and I have to save everyone’s ass.”

“You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

Raven winks. “I know my worth.”

You can’t help chuckling.

(You know it, too.)

/

“Wow,” Raven breathes as you step off the boat, “are you sure we have to go home after this?”

“Hm.” The sun hits you just right, warming your cheeks even though it’s barely fifty degrees. The air is sharp and briny and it smells like the water in a way you don’t associate with New England. A little fuller, a little richer, or maybe you just have a good feeling about the island.

“Hellooo, Clarke.” Raven bumps your shoulder, breaking your moment of peace.

“Yes,” you say, waiting until the very last moment to open your eyes. “We still have to go home after this. You’re almost done with your degree, and I know you don’t want to waste all that money.”

“I could probably make it back again.”

“You definitely could, and you will.” You sling an arm over Raven’s shoulder and walk into town with an easy, if slightly off-kilter, gait. “But we still have to go back.”

“Party pooper.”

She calms down the more you walk around town, navigating the narrow shopping streets filled mostly with tourists. You’d feel bothered to be one if you didn’t think you were supposed to be here, if you didn’t think that _something_ was waiting for you if you could only find the right corner to turn down.

Every few hours you soothe Raven’s perpetual grumpiness with some food, snacks from little shops and restaurants whose names and menus you definitely don’t consult before deciding to patronize them. By the late afternoon you’re both tired and Raven has been a trooper, walking around all day. You take your bags of impulse souvenirs and get spectacularly lost as you try to find the villa you’re spending far too much money on for just a few nights.

“We’ve been down here, Clarke,” Raven whines as you turn down an unfamiliar street.

“We haven’t,” you reply, “I would have noticed these shops.”

“Claaaaaarke.” Raven slouches back and hangs her head, stopping just short of dragging her hands on the ground. “I can’t walk any more, Clarke.”

“Yes, you can, you big baby. Will a snack calm you down while I ask for directions?”

“What kind of snack?”

You grab Raven’s wrist and drag her toward some produce. “Look at these tomatoes, aren’t they weird?”

“You’re trying to bribe me with _tomatoes_?”

“Weird ones, no less,” an unfamiliar voice teases.

You look up to find a woman smiling as she rearranges the tomatoes in question, and you blush—whether because you’ve been caught or because she’s beautiful, you couldn’t really say. Her green eyes are arresting, to say the least, twinkling mischievously as she regards you.

You come back to your senses with a shake of your head, realizing it’s getting to be too long since someone has spoken.

“In a good way,” you stammer. “Weird in a good way.”

“Of course.”

Raven drops your hand and any hint of irritation from her face, replacing it with a smug, toothy grin.

“I think they’re very distinctive,” she smirks. “Must take a skilled hand to grow them.”

“Anyone on this island could do it.”

“Anyone?” Raven leans in. “Wanna teach me?”

The woman leans in as well. “No,” she smiles. “But I’d be happy to sell you some. You won’t find many around, this time of year.”

You crane your neck, suddenly remembering that it is, in fact, December. “How do you have any at all?” you ask, your need for directions forgotten.

“Family secret,” the woman winks. She adjusts the last pile and steps back, wiping her hands on her apron. “We’re near closing, if you were thinking of buying something.”

“Well, now I definitely want as many tomatoes as you’re willing to part with,” you grin. “But we actually came over because we’re super lost.”

“Banking on the friendliness of a local grocer to help a stranded tourist?”

“Not above bribery, if that’s what it takes.”

“That’s where the tomatoes come in, I guess.” She drops four into a paper bag and hands them to you anyway. “Where are you trying to go?”

You tell her the address and pass the bag of tomatoes to Raven as you listen. You have to shake your head more than once to remind yourself to actually pay attention, because it’s extraordinarily easy to be distracted by how pretty this woman is. You shake yourself out of her eyes, her cheeks, her freckles and lips, until she stops talking and the best you can do is hope that Raven isn’t as affected.

With your luck, she’s probably worse.

“Think you’ve got that?” the woman finally says, waiting for your response.

“Yep, for sure,” you nod, just a little too confidently. “We got all that.”

“If you don’t, you know where to find me now.”

“Yeah.” You try not to sigh. “Um, how much for the tomatoes?”

She picks up what’s left in the basket and starts to head inside. “On the house.”

“Really?”

“No. Your friend already paid for them. Hope those directions work for you.”

You feel Raven’s hands on your shoulders as she frog-marches you away from the shop.

You hope she wears out her smirk by the time you go to sleep.

/

_“Hey, shrimp! When did you get so tall?”_

_She doesn’t stop herself from hugging you like the rest of your cousins did as they grew up. She runs over a little slower than usual, arms bent and deliberately locked in place like she’s trying to be cool. You see shades of yourself in her and wonder if this scrawny thirteen-year-old is about to find a second home at the gym like you did._

_You almost mention something to her, offer to get her into some kind of sport or give her a primer on weight training. But she seems small in your arms—her boys’ basketball shoes clash with her polka-dotted hair tie, no doubt a hand-me-down and yet she doesn’t bristle when you give her some goodhearted shit for it. Her clothes are just a little baggy, her skin is tanned from being outside every waking moment, and she’s a little rank in the way that kids are, probably for the same reason._

_She hugs you just as tightly as she did when she was nine and you wait patiently until she lets go._

_Another day._

_._

_“Hey, can we get ice cream or something?”_

_“In January?”_

_She shrugs. “S’not like it stops being tasty in January. Plus you’re going back to school soon, right?”_

_“In two weeks. You’ve got time.” She doesn’t look convinced, shifting her weight between her feet. “Maybe this is less about the ice cream and more about...talking?” you guess._

_She nods, mostly looking at the floor._

_You grab your coat, then hers when she stays looking down._

_She smiles when you hold it out. “Lead with that next time, okay?” She only pulls away a little when you pinch her chin._

_You wink and let her follow you to the car. Neither of you really looks at the other or says anything as you drive, which you know is how she feels comfortable in situations like these. You wonder sometimes if this is how she or if this is how the system made her. Not for the first time, you hope someday she trusts you enough to tell you about the years before you knew her._

_She orders two scoops of mint chocolate chip and only adds sprinkles after you pester her. You will teach this kid how to indulge some day; it’s maybe the most important thing you could teach her._

_But that day is still in the future so you take your ice cream, grab a blanket from your backseat, and settle in the bed of your pickup in the middle of an empty parking lot._

_“School okay?” you start._

_“It’s fine.”_

_“Sick of Gustus yet?”_

_“No.”_

_“I know he’s my uncle but you can tell me if he, like, sings too loud or makes you eat too many of those gross whole-wheat pancakes or something.”_

_“He’s fine, Anya,” she laughs._

_“I could take him in a fight, you know.” You flex to prove it._

_“You’re dumb,” she says, knocking her shoulder into yours. “Gustus is the best.”_

_“I feel like I should be offended.”_

_“It’s not Gustus.”_

_“But it is someone?” She nods. “A bad someone?” She shakes her head. “Good someone. Do they have a name?” You scrape your plastic spoon along the bottom of the cup, trying your best to scoop every bit of melted ice cream into one bite. “Because names are important; you can tell a lot about a person by their name.”_

_She fidgets next to you, cramming as much ice cream in her mouth at once as she can. One of these days she’ll understand that she doesn’t need to manufacture moments to think—you’d happily give her the space she needs without any excuse._

_“Maya,” she finally says._

_You steal a scoop of what’s left of her ice cream. “Hm, that’s a good name,” you say, tilting your head to keep the ice cream in your mouth. “Zoeys can be trouble and you should stay away from_ every _Olivia. But Mayas are real good.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_She passes you the rest of her ice cream, pulls the blanket over her shoulder, and tells you everything she likes about Maya._

_It’s a long list._

_._

_You stay in the States until you graduate college and then you travel around the world and eventually end up on the family farm, and conversation passes in a montage of FaceTime calls, WhatsApp messages that get less and less frequent as the years go on. You follow each other on Instagram and it’s wonderful to see what she posts, to know that she’s happy and growing. You keep an eye on her as much as you can from another country, watching as your awkward cousin finds the gym after all—the gym and a lot of plants—and turns into someone who must be driving every girl at her school crazy._

_You give her shit for every expertly crafted shot of a cactus or steaming latte, every faceless snap with weights or oversized boots or one of her many brightly-colored flannels. She deflects every jab but you can see the twinkle in her eye that says she knows what she’s doing, and it’s working._

_The twinkle dims when Gustus has his accident._

_Updates become less frequent, and your calls in those days are almost always from a hospital or physical therapy office or something like that. She smiles when you talk but you know she’s lonely, and you wish more than anything that she could have someone with her. There have been a few girlfriends over the years but no one has stuck, and you haven’t been able to travel back as much as you’d hoped._

_It’s only a small consolation, then, that you’re there to hold her hand through the funeral._

_The dreams start when she follows you back._

_._

_You think about that summer with her, newly crowned a teenager and gangly in her big eyes and olive skin. She smiled as much as a thirteen-year-old should and still you wanted her to smile more._

_“Lex. Hey, Lexa.”_

_She turns toward you and her eyes are wet and sad; her hair is wild, frizzy in the humid summer air. The corners of her lips droop downwards and you press a hand to your chest as you step back—overwhelmed, just for a moment._

_You think maybe she could use a reminder, too._

/

You wake with a start, a pair of vibrant green eyes blazing in your mind. It feels like you could have been sleeping for five minutes or ten hours and on any other night you would roll over and try to will yourself back to dreams. But your heart is hammering because you know those eyes—you’ve seen them, twinkling in the late afternoon sun.

Raven has kicked off the sheets and blankets on her bed, spread out on her back to take up as much room as she can. You stand up, blink away your sleepy haze, and shake her awake. Years of friendship have taught you to grab somewhere between her elbow and her shoulder to prevent any kind of sleep-fighting response.

She clenches her hands into fists anyway when she stirs.

“What!” she blurts. “Who’s in trouble; I’ll kick their ass.”

“No one.” You grab her by both shoulders now and drag her, somewhat unwillingly, into a sitting position. “Raven, I know what happens when you find your soulmate.”

“You do,” she grumbles, rubbing her eyes. You roll yours and wait for her brain to wake up. “Okay. Sorry, say that—holy _shit_!” She punches your arm, once out of instinct and a second time on purpose, and with intention. “What the fuck, Clarke?”

“What do you mean _what the fuck_ , you just _punched_ me…”

“Who is it! How do you know who she is; what did you see; please tell me she’s not that hot so I can brag about my definitely-hot soulmate—”

You clamp a hand over Raven’s mouth to prevent any further questions. “I got, like, a movie montage of her life up ‘til now as my dream tonight and let’s just say that I’d be set if I wanted to eat nothing but weird tomatoes for the rest of my life.”

Raven’s eyes bug out. “Huhmayho guh?” You take your hand away. “Tomato girl?” she repeats.

You smile, suddenly shy.

Raven flops back on her bed and groans.

“No _fucking_ fair.”

/

Raven doesn’t go with you to the shop the next day—something about not wanting to watch you flirt, but you think probably she’s just horny and wants to find someone for herself.

You bid each other good luck after breakfast with a promise to check in by nine if you haven’t crossed paths all day. She heads off to do some exploring (hunting, more like) and you meander your way back down that street, taking it slow in the hopes that maybe your heart will stop thumping.

It’s a big fucking deal, the more you think about it. Soulmates are—you don’t know how much of a guaranteed thing it is, if this really is the person you’re going to stay with forever. But the connection is real and, even in relationships that didn’t end up working out, you’ve never heard someone say that they didn’t understand why it was who it was.

You get so caught up wondering what it possibly is about Lexa for you that you walk past her shop four times.

Around lunch you stop stalling, figuring that if nothing else you can just say you’re hungry. She isn’t outside this time so you take a deep breath and wander inside. It’s not a big shop so it seems crowded, with packed shelves and narrow walkways. Someone is laughing near the back of the store—your pulse jumps to an almost-troubling rate.

It’s not Lexa.

Your shoulders slump as you glimpse the woman behind the register. Her hair hangs in her face as she counts out bills; it looks almost white when it hits the sun.

She looks up, catches you staring, and frowns as you avert your eyes and grab desperately at a bag of pasta in front of you.

“Can I help you?”

Her voice is more accented and a lot meaner than Lexa’s, you notice, though the latter might just be down to your staring.

“Hello?”

You let go of the pasta and walk over to her, running through a few options for a good opening line in the short seconds before you have to explain yourself. _I think I found my soulmate_ —no— _I’m looking for my soulmate_ —too cheesy— _are you possibly related to the other devastatingly beautiful woman who works here and if so did you know I’ve been dreaming about her through your eyes for the past couple of months_ …

“Lexa,” you say instead, when you have to.

The woman narrows her eyes. “I’m not Lexa.”

“No, I know.” You shake your head. “I’m looking for her.”

“Why?”

You run a hand through your hair and expel a noisy breath. “We met yesterday and she gave me some tomatoes and then I...had some dreams…”

“What.”

“I mean, like—” You don’t know what it is about this woman that makes it impossible for you to say the word soulmate, except that she’s got a glare you haven’t seen even on your most intimidating professor. You hold up your wrist and point to the ticking clock. “I had some dreams,” you repeat.

Her eyes widen, just for a moment, and then the suspicious indifference sets back in. “The artist,” she grumbles.

You shake your head, confused. “You’re an artist?”

She rolls her eyes. “No, stupid, _you_ are. It’s all Lexa talked about, in the beginning.” She leans forward and very blatantly checks you out, taking her time to inspect every corner of your body. “Nice.”

“Thanks?”

She huffs and tears off a piece of receipt paper, writing something down very quickly and, from the looks of it, almost illegibly. “Here,” she says, handing it to you. “She’s taking some time for herself today, but I’ll be home by eight. You should swing by.”

“Seriously?”

“What, are you gonna pass up a chance to meet your _soulmate_?” She lets the word fall out of her mouth like it’s rotten.

“I guess not.” You take the paper—an address—from her slowly, giving her more than enough time to yank it back. “Thanks, and—”

_Sorry_ , you want to say, _for how much you care about her and how hard it was to be there for her. And also that your uncle died._

The way she raises her eyebrows makes you think maybe you should just take the address and go.

“Thanks,” you repeat like an idiot, “I’ll, um. See you.”

She gives you a patronizing salute as you leave, watching you the whole way.

/

You take a picture of the address and text it to Raven, with explicit instructions that you’re safe and she shouldn’t follow you under any circumstances.

She responds with a string of cat and sweat emojis.

The rest of the day passes in a blur of nothingness and you eventually find yourself in a tiny car riding to Lexa’s house, which isn’t in the main city. There’s a point, probably halfway through, where you feel calmest, away from the loud tourists and bright lights of downtown. The countryside is beautiful and soon you hear nothing but nocturnal animals and the brush of leaves in the wind.

That feeling lingers for maybe five minutes before you realize you’re now getting closer to meeting possibly the most important person you’ll ever meet.

The drive is over far too soon and all of a sudden you’re in front of a cozy house in the middle of open fields and you have to take several breaths before your legs are strong enough to walk toward the door.

You knock on the door, checking the clock on your wrist for the millionth time. You still can’t believe it—the shine it has, how it glitters gold now instead of the matte black it used to be. You watch and you wait and you hope you don’t have to knock again.

“Clarke,” she says, and you actually have to steady yourself against the doorframe.

You look up, clock the storm in her eyes, and blink back a sudden rush of tears. “Lexa, hey,” you breathe.

She smiles. “That feels like an understatement.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry about your dad.”

“You got the Clarke Griffin speedrun, huh.”

Lexa scratches at the back of her neck and wow you could look at her forearms forever. “Yeah, I...wasn’t expecting that. No one warned me that’s how it happened.”

“Yeah.” You grin and cross your arms. Truthfully you’d love to reach out and touch her but you don’t know anything about her. “Sorry about Gustus,” you offer back. “I didn’t know either. I mean—”

“I know.”

She looks at you and smiles again. Her fingers twitch near the tops of her pants’ pockets. Your eyes follow every movement she makes, greedily taking in the reality of your person standing in front of you.

“How come you don’t sound Greek?” you blurt.

She laughs at that, loud and and resonant against the still of the night. You feel drunk or enchanted or something and god, if this is all soulmate magic you’re so excited for the rest of your life.

“Let’s take a walk,” Lexa suggests.

She fills you in on a few key details as you stroll away from the house—that the scary woman from the shop is her cousin Anya, and she works hard to cultivate that ornery persona; that Lexa was adopted when she was nine by Anya’s uncle, and you know by the way that she says it that she loved him beyond measure.

She tells you that she grew up in Nebraska until Gustus died.

“No fucking _wonder_ ,” you groan when she mentions it. “My dreams were always so boring because you were only one time zone away. Denver,” you clarify, when she furrows her brow.

“Imagine that,” she murmurs. “One state over this whole time and we meet in Greece.”

“Yeah.” You kick at a rock, watching as it tumbles over packed dirt and thin sticks. “Kinda sucks—I don’t know you yet, but I have a feeling you would have made the hard stuff better.”

“I dunno,” Lexa shrugs. “I was a pretty quiet kid. Best I could have done was probably sit quietly in the same room as you.”

“Sounds good to me,” you smile. “There’s something to be said about the right kind of silence.”

Lexa smiles back, and you’re gonna have to learn how to control this feeling without needing a door frame every time. “I’m glad we met anyway, even if it took a while.”

You nod. “You wanna talk about the hard stuff before we start liking each other too much?”

Lexa crinkles her eyebrows. “What, you mean Gustus and your dad?”

“More like the fact that you live in Greece and I’m leaving in two days to finish up my last semester at college.”

“Oh. That makes more sense.” She puts her hands in her back pockets and looks into the distance, rocking back and forth on her heels. You can’t stop staring at the length of her neck. “I don’t actually live in Greece.”

“For now you do.”

“For now,” she confirms.

“And, not that I have any say over your life”— _yet_ , you add in your head—“the idea of someday not living in Greece…?”

Lexa sighs. “It’ll probably happen sometime,” she admits, “but I don’t think I could go back to Nebraska. Maybe Colorado,” she blushes, “or maybe somewhere else, if I had the right people there with me. Not that _I_ have any say over your life,” she parrots, “but how do you feel about the idea of not living in Colorado?”

You shrug. “I like Colorado. Not sure I’m ready to live on vacation for the rest of my life, but I could like a lot of other places if the company was good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She smiles wide and you’re sure her teeth are actually stars. “Hey, can I ask you something weird?”

“Sure.”

“When you dreamed about me, what did it look like?” Lexa cocks an eyebrow and exaggerates a suspicious squint. “No,” you laugh, “not like—I mean, how did you see me? From whose perspective?”

“I didn’t see you, Clarke.” You’re learning that Lexa says your name sometimes in a way that evokes an involuntary flutter in your heart. “That’s the whole point, right? To see what your soulmate is doing without actually seeing them. When I dreamed, I saw what you saw.”

“Huh.”

“You didn’t?”

You shake your head. “I don’t know why. My dreams were always from someone else’s perspective, but I never saw your face. I think—I think it was Anya, actually.” Lexa’s jaw actually drops at that and you feel an unstoppable urge to keep explaining yourself, like you’re finally starting to understand why your dreams worked the way they did except you’re still missing the most obvious answer. “It was always blips when I was a kid, probably on the rare occasion you left Nebraska, but I got so many when you came here and it was always from the same person’s perspective and I think—”

You take a step back and look at her, stop yourself from saying the absolutely crazy thing you were about to say. _I think it’s why I’m so in love with you_ , except that can’t be right because you just met her and half a year of faceless dreams is not enough to support a whole relationship or even an _attempt_ at one. But you spent those dreams watching Lexa from the perspective of someone who cares deeply for her, who wants nothing more than to help and provide and ensure that Lexa is never neglected. You feel extraordinarily charmed right now because Anya has been charmed for as long as she’s known Lexa, even if she never explicitly said it.

“You’re her favorite person in the world, probably.” You say it for her and hope Anya can’t hear you all the way back at the house.

Lexa turns away, tilts her cheeks up toward the sky, clenches her jaw and swallows three times in quick succession. You catch the glint of a tear on her face that she isn’t quick enough to hide.

“Lexa, hey…”

You step forward slowly, giving her time to push you away, and pull her into a hug when she doesn’t.

Her arms are still at her side as she leans into you and it feels phenomenal to hold her, to feel the slight tremble in her cheek as she cries. The wind blows steadily across her back and you watch it ripple her shirt. You hug her without pressure, hands splayed flat on her shoulders, and you don’t say anything as her arms unfold to loop around your waist. Her breath is hot against your neck, heavy with tears, and she gradually slides down until her forehead is resting on your shoulder, parallel with the ground.

“Thank you,” she mumbles eventually.

“Thank Anya,” you mumble back.

“No.” She laughs, forceful and unrestrained, teetering on the edge of hysteria until it turns into a cry. Lexa warbles and hiccups and laughs again, after a few moments. “Sorry, this is ridiculous.”

“Sure, but I’m not complaining.”

“No, I mean—” Lexa pulls away from you, grips your shoulders and looks at the ground as she gathers herself. You don’t think it really works; she moves immediately to cover her eyes with her hands, pressing her fingers tightly just underneath her eyebrows. Lexa moves like a liquid, you notice, like everything is connected and her fingers flow into arms flow into torso flows through her feet.

“I’m going to try and explain myself,” she mumbles, muffled by her palms.

It’s unbelievably endearing and you can’t help but smile—perhaps a little wider because she can’t see you. “You don’t have to,” you assure her.

“I do. Thank you, but I do.” Her shoulders lift almost all the way to her ears as she heaves a deep sigh. “Gustus was my dad and I never told him. I never actually called him Dad and I know it hurt but he never said anything because he wanted me to feel safe. And I thought that maybe one day I’d get there so I didn’t worry about it too much, only then he died and I never got the chance. His soulmate died a long time before he adopted me and I know Gustus missed him so much—and here I was, this reject kid who couldn’t even call him Dad, denying him a little bit of love when so much had already been stolen from him. I thought that was why I didn’t have the dreams. When they started, I didn’t tell Anya for weeks because I thought they were penance, some kind of cosmic guilt trip to punish me for being scared. And here you come, buying tomatoes on a whim because you’re too American to find your way around, and all you know about me is how much Anya loves me.” She shakes her head as if she’s trying to fling her feelings out of her ears. “It’s too much, Clarke.”

“Lexa.” You step forward and curl your fingers around her hands, prying them away from her face. Tears cling to her eyelashes like an actual fucking work of art and you think of all your oils and acrylics and watercolors at home, waiting for a muse. You can’t help flicking your eyes down to her lips, wondering exactly which shades and media you’ll be mixing to recreate them. Probably every one you know, you decide.

“You’re a huge fucking mess, aren’t you?” Lexa laughs loudly again and nods, leaning her weight onto your arms. “Cool,” you grin, wiping a tear from her cheek without letting go. “So am I. I convinced my best friend to come on this trip with me because I had a hunch my soulmate was here somewhere. You know I almost went to South Africa?”

“No way, me too!”

“What??”

Lexa winks and bites her lip. “Just kidding.”

You take a moment to glare at her, in that way that you’re so exasperated and so fond and you still barely know her. “You feeling better?” you say eventually, jostling her hands as if she’s gently punching herself.

“Yes.”

“Wonderful. I know we don’t really know each other and we’re both kinda messed up, but do you think I could—”

Lexa kisses you before you even have a chance to finish speaking.

She’s flush against you and it’s awkward, with her arms folded between your bodies, your hands still holding each of hers. But slowly, piece by piece, you feel her start to unravel and one arm wraps around your waist; the other goes to your hair and you swear a breeze blows through again, artfully lifting your curls and twirling the two of you together like it’s a fucking Disney movie. She is salty and soft, dewy and getting warmer and your mouths are making places to fit with each other. You rest your hands on her hips—gentle, safe—before gripping her shirt and pulling her closer until you can’t breathe, or maybe she’s breathing for you, or maybe it’s some middle ground you haven’t walked yet.

Lexa kisses you to the point of creation.

“Okay,” you pant when you pull away. “This is gonna be hard.”

“Mhm.” (She kisses you.)

“But that’s what—” (one two three) “—phones are for.” (Four, five, she kisses you.)

“Clarke.”

“Yes.”

(You kiss her.)

“Do you know what that sounds like?”

“Um…”

“A problem for future-us.”

“Okay—”

(There is a tree. You are pressed against it. She kisses you.)

“—I like the sound of that.”


End file.
